LibGuides: Journalism, PR and Media: Reference works

Statistical data

UK Data Service (registration required) This link opens in a new window
UK and international survey and statistical data drawn from a range of respected sources including: United Nations, IMF, OECD, World Bank, International Labour Organization (ILO), International Energy Agency (IEA), Eurostat and UNIDO. Free registration required to access some parts of the database.
Passport (Euromonitor) This link opens in a new window
Market research data that analysts at Euromonitor have collated including consumer lifestyle reports, future demographics, country profiles, updates on consumer and industry trends, company information, market sizes and economic indicators. Passport covers more than 200 countries and regions, with a global outlook
Office for National Statistics This link opens in a new window
The main gateway to UK official statistics. Provides direct access to tables of data, full text publications and the latest official releases. Covers Britain's economy, population and society at national and regional levels. Updated daily.

Neighbourhood Statistics
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When small area information is collected and made available it can radically improve strategies and service delivery. Neighbourhood Statistics contains over 300 datasets, covering Health, Housing, Education, Deprivation, Age, Ethnicity & 2001 Census data down to neighbourhood level; on-line e-learning to guide users through the site; and a statistical toolkit to help users understand data. [ from wikipedia]

World Factbook This link opens in a new window
Broad overviews of countries, briefly describing geography, people, government, economy, communications, transport, military and transnational issues.
Includes images of national flags and reference maps of continents and regions. Country profiles include both written and statistical data.

General reference

Encyclopaedia Britannica This link opens in a new window
Encyclopaedia Britannica Online comprises of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Student , Elementary, Concise encyclopaedia plus Britannica internet Guide and Merridiam Webster collegiate Dictionary/Thesaurus.
There is a search option to search the encyclopaedias by 'Word' 'Phrase' and 'Question' or browse by the 'Index', 'Subject', 'Article' and review by year from 1993 plus 'Timelines' There is a 'Cite Article'.
Oxford Reference Online: Premium This link opens in a new window
Oxford Reference Online gives access to the world's largest reference collection, allowing for a single cross searchable resource. Comprises 100+ quick reference titles from the Core Collection plus 50,000+ longer in-depth entries from an expanding range of titles in the Oxford Companies series.
It adds and revises titles regularly. All 20,000+ quotation entries from the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. 5,300+ illustrations, including full-colour maps, line diagrams and tables, 36,000+ bibliographies and 1,400+ external web links, as well as enhanced search functions to access results by category. Timelines currently cover events from the 20th century only. At the end of every results page there is information on 'how to cite this entry'.

Sheffield public libraries resources

As well as the resources provided by Sheffield Hallam University Library, you will find useful material at Sheffield City Council Libraries, so it is well worth becoming a member.

This material includes biographical and reference resources which Sheffield Hallam does not possess, as well a local studies collection which is invaluable for projects about Sheffield. The Central Library is in Surrey Street, just across the road from Adsetts Library.

Sheffield City Archives & Local Studies Library

Biography

The libraries have a number of print books of bibliographical information, such Who's Who and International Who's Who.We also have a number of online biographical resources.

Students who join the Sheffield Public Library can use their Library Card to access Who's Who & Who Was Who online free of charge. Simply go to the 24 hours web site, scroll down to the link to Who's Who and when you reach the login page enter your library card number, making sure you prefix it with shef.

You can also use the various newspaper databases under the News tab to look up obituaries to find biographical information about dead people.

Who's Who [and Who Was Who]
Who's Who provides Information on over 33,000 influential people in British public life. The site also includes Who's Who with entries for over 100,000 deceased people from 1897 to date. What makes Who's Who unique is that each biographee provides the details for their own entry, and many include contact details. NB Access requires a Sheffield Public Library Card number preceded by SHEF which works with the link in Oxford DNB too.
Who's Who of British Members of Parliament
A valuable series of biographies of Members of Parliament covering the years 1832-1979 in four volumes. This link takes users to the location in the library of volume 1. The other three volumes are shelved at the same location. There is no electronic edition in stock.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography This link opens in a new window
The Oxford DNB aims to provide full, accurate, concise, and readable articles, based on current scholarship, on noteworthy people from all walks of life who have left their mark on British history. No living person is included in the dictionary.
The dictionary includes people who were born and lived in the British Isles; people from the British Isles who achieved recognition in other countries; people who lived in territories formerly connected to the British Isles at a time when they were in contact with British rule; and people born elsewhere who settled in the British Isles for significant periods or whose visits enabled them to leave a mark on British life.
Encyclopaedia Britannica This link opens in a new window
Encyclopaedia Britannica Online comprises of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Student , Elementary, Concise encyclopaedia plus Britannica internet Guide and Merridiam Webster collegiate Dictionary/Thesaurus.
There is a search option to search the encyclopaedias by 'Word' 'Phrase' and 'Question' or browse by the 'Index', 'Subject', 'Article' and review by year from 1993 plus 'Timelines' There is a 'Cite Article'.
Literature Online (LION) This link opens in a new window
Literature Online includes more than 350,000 works of English and American poetry, drama and prose, 323 full-text literature journals, and other key criticism and reference resources, as well as access to the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL) and MLA International Bibliography.
Includes biographies for 4,100 authors, and also online access to a number of reference works, such as The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms and The Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English . There are also links to relevant websites for primary texts and critical and biographical material.
AccessScience This link opens in a new window
Access Science is a wide-ranging, regularly-updated online science encyclopedia. As well as standard encyclopedia entries, it also has the latest science news, image galleries and biographies of famous scientists. Only five users can use it at once, so if you can not get in, please try again later.
Biography.com This link opens in a new window
TV network-sponsored site covering over 25,000 biographies of living and historical people
Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online This link opens in a new window
The Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online contains biographies of persons who played an important role in the formation of what is now Canada. It contains information about people who died between 1000 and 1930 or whose last known date of activity falls within these years.
Dictionary of New Zealand Biography This link opens in a new window
The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography contains over 3,000 biographical essays about New Zealanders including biographies of Maori people in English and Maori. No living people are included.
Gale News Vault This link opens in a new window
Cross-searches SHU's collection of Gale historical newspapers, comprising Newspapers from British Library from 1757 to 1950 and The Times, Financial Times, Daily Mail, Economist, TLS Historical Archives. With the power to search millions of digitized facsimile pages, Gale NewsVault provides an unparalleled window to the past.
Uses search interface with enhanced features such as thumbnail images; browse newspapers by title and by place of publication; full-text searching with hit-term highlighting; read newspapers cover to cover in full screen, using an advanced image viewer; save print and bookmark; grab, pan, zoom and crop images; and cross-browse all newspapers published on the same date.

Pipl
A search tool for locating people's web presence.